Ida Alexander Gibbs

Ida Alexander Gibbs (later Ida Alexander Gibbs Hunt) was born November 16, 1862 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada after her father Judge Mifflin Wistar Gibbs emigrated there from Philadelphia. Ida Gibbs studied English at Oberlin College alongside Mary Church Terrell and Anna Julia Cooper. Gibbs later returned to Oberlin to obtain her masters in music. They were the first class of Black women to graduate from the institution in 1884. [1] Their lifelong friendships and roles as race leaders demonstrated the importance of Black political collectives.

She taught higher mathematics and Latin at Huntsville Normal School, now known as Alabama A&M University. In 1892, she became the Second Assistant and Principal of the Preparatory Department at State Normal and Industrial College for Colored Students working with her cousin, Thomas V. R. Gibbs. [2] She then moved to Washington, DC and M Street High School, one of the first public high schools for Black people, was the final school she taught at. [3]

In 1904, she married William Henry Hunt, a Black diplomat and friend of her father, Mifflin. As a result of his occupation, she lived in Madagascar, France, Guadeloupe, and Liberia, among other places. During this time, she also became heavily involved in civil rights work and Pan-Africanism. She supported her friend W. E. B. Du Bois in several organizing efforts including: the Pan-African Congress, the Niagara Movement, and the NAACP (including writing for the Crisis under Iola Gibson). She also supported the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, co-chaired the 1923 London Third Pan-African Congress’ Executive Committee, and delivered a paper titled, “The Colored Races and the League of Nations.”[4] Her work was no doubt influenced by the political organizers in her family. Given her expansive work in Black collective organizing, it is likely that she also attended several conventions given her travels from Canada, Ohio, Alabama, Florida, and Washington, DC.

She passed away on December 19, 1957 in Washington, DC. [5]

Harriet Gibbs

Harriet Gibbs [Marshall] was Ida Gibbs’s younger sister. She was a trained lawyer, educator, and musician. Like her sister, Harriet Gibbs graduated from Oberlin College. Gibbs studied music and furthered her training in Paris. Immensely talented, she made a name for herself in Washington, DC, and elsewhere as she performed in different states. In 1903, she founded the Washington Conservatory of Music and School of Expression in the capital city. She served as the president of the conservatory. W.E.B. DuBois’s magazine The Crisis noted that the conservatory “under the directorship of Mrs. Harriet Gibbs-Marshall, is giving valuable aid in developing a taste for the best music and is becoming an art influence in the District of Columbia.” [6] She also served as the president of the National Association of Colored Musical and Art Clubs, organized in 1908 in New York, New York. Ida and Harriet Gibbs’s life and work testifies to how African Americans’ inculcated the importance of education to the younger generation. Both women educated and trained hundreds of young African Americans, opening up avenues for them and the generations that followed.